The quote database

A good conscience fears no witnesses, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even of solitude.

Where the mind is tinctured with philosophy, there is no place for grief, anxiety, or superfluous vexations.

Life is a navigation; we are perpetually wallowing and dashing one against another; sometimes we suffer shipwreck, but we are always in danger and in expectation of it.

Not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is abundantly sufficient; for he that is so, wants nothing.

To lament the death of a friend is both natural and just; a sigh or a tear I would allow to his memory: but no profuse or obstinate sorrow.

To mourn without measure is folly, and not to mourn at all is insensibility.

A wise man gives way to tears in some cases, and cannot avoid them in others.

The ostentation of grief is many times more than the grief itself.

In time, the most stubborn grief will leave us, if in prudence we do not leave that first.

A false and a childish sorrow is appeased with as false and as childish a revenge.

Beside, that the ills which he fears he may suffer, he suffers in the very fear of them.

Can there be any man so fearful, that had not rather fall once than hang always in suspense?

How many casualties and difficulties are there that we dread as insupportable mischiefs, which, upon farther thoughts, we find to be mercies and benefits?

Providence treats us like a generous father, and brings us up to labors, toils, and dangers; whereas the indulgence of a fond mother makes us weak and spiritless.

There is nothing that we can properly call our own but our time, and yet every body fools us out of it that has a mind to it.

If we do not watch, we lose our opportunities; if we do not make haste, we are left behind; our best hours escape us, the worst are to come.

Business that is ready and practicable goes off with ease; but when it is too heavy for the bearer, they fall both together.

Oh! the delights of rest when a man comes to be weary, and of meat when he is heartily hungry.

A wise man is never so busy as in the solitary contemplation of God and the works of Nature.

Anger is not only a vice, but a vice point-blank against nature, for it divides instead of joining

Do not, I beg you, dread those things which the immortal gods apply to our minds like spurs: misfortune is virtue's opportunity.

Fortune lashes and mangles us: well, let us endure it: it is not cruelty, it is a struggle, in which the oftener we engage the braver we shall become.

Great men, I say, often rejoice at crosses of fortune just as brave soldiers do at wars.

Misfortunes press hardest on those who are unacquainted with them: the yoke feels heavy to the tender neck.

There are a thousand other instances in which application has conquered all obstacles, and proved that nothing which the mind has set itself to endure is difficult.